Copyright Malcolm Faed.
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This blog includes personal things of interest including electric vehicle conversion. I have documented the conversion of a petrol (gas) powered vehicle to Electric. http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/1149.
The blog now documents the conversion of a BMW E30 to electric.

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

EV Efficiency and pollution

I wrote this piece in response to a post on the EEV Blog to clear up some points.

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I wrote a blog post a while ago http://a4x4kiwi.blogspot.com/2008/12/co2-output-and-charging-using-coal.html detailing CO2 output. In NSW inefficient EVs are on a par with petrol. Coal power stations are more efficient that you mention. (33%-53%)

I have not accounted in this equation for how much it costs $ or CO2 to extract oil, transport it, refine it, transport it again. Not have I accounted for extraction costs for coal, but I would bet coal is cheaper on both counts.

Nissan says it takes 7.5kWh just to refine a gallon of gasoline. see http://musingsofamadman.net/2010/03/07/the-truth-about-oil/. That doesn't count extraction and transport.

Or 2kWh per Litre. We can drive an additional 10km on that alone.

But enough on the CO2 and efficiency. There are other significant factors that come into play here, cost and environment aside.

We can produce our own electricity to power cars, and do not have to be dependant on foreign oil and the associated price vulnerabilities. The point of pollution is out of the cities. A Coal fired power station is more efficient than a petrol engine, and easier to scrub the output from one power station than 50,000 or whatever number of cars.